Four Corners

[ITCZ]

There is no law of supply and demand

Binoculars, you might be able to convince me if your argument was based on a real 'law' rather than an observation. All you tell me when you rabbit on about economic 'laws' is how little you know about economics..

There is no 'law' of supply and demand. It is a construct. A rational construct that explains a set of behaviours.

It is particularly useful construct, but it is not a law. It does not rule human behaviour, unless we allow it.

You probably don't want to believe me. Fine. Before you relax and allow your 'law' to stand, a minor challenge for you.

Show me a society or civilisation that has permitted complete, unregulated supply and demand in all areas of life.

Go on. I'll check back in a few years to see if you found one. Your search will be a long one, and eventually fruitless. That is because NO human society, whether agrarian, capitalist, socialist, the whole shebang, has EVER been silly enough to completely surrender to 'supply and demand'

Some things are just TOO important to allow 'the market' to allocate resources.

This is why Australians have public schools, public hospitals, legal aid, fire brigades that don't charge a fee for service, etc. It is why we have service guarantees for telephones. It is why we have public roads.

So do yourself a favour and drop the free market fervour. You just don't understand the real world. Not your real world, the REAL real world!

Successive governments have pandered to big interests and deregulated aviation to the point where a community of a thousand people with no roads have to pay $450 plus for a return trip to a regional centre about 300km away. That same amount of money buys a city dweller a round trip to a holiday destination several thousand km away.

Not even touching the argument 'they choose to live there.' Those communities are there, and they have every right to be there. If not, well, is there a spare room in your house?

So, you have these very poor communities, that have no choice when it comes to travelling. Must be via plane.

They are lucky enough to have a two crewed turbine RPT service.

But, instead of the rest of us Aussies adding a dollar or ten to our ticket on the A320, these folks have to use aerodromes and services that have to cover all of their infrastructure costs, plus make a dollar!

So the two crewed turbine RPT service means not quite as much as your average Aussie has a right to expect.

We have two problems in Australian aviation. (1) it is too easy to train to be a pilot. Yes, too easy. Expensive and time consuming, but anybody who has a few dollars and dreams of flying is encouraged to do so by flying schools.

We should restrict supply of aviation training to future pilots. It is almost ridiculous that we have so very many young pilots that spend tens of thousands of dollars on their pathway to Qantas, when Qantas will take maybe one in fifty.

If somebody discovered that only one in fifty DipEd students ever got a full time job in a school, there would be amazement!

If somebody discovered that only one in fifty medical students ever actually became practicing doctors, there would be an outcry over the waste of resources.

Yet we allow it in aviation. It creates a culture of undercutting, non-reporting on safety issues, the whole shebang.

General aviation and third level airlines do not have a culture of excellence. Pilots and engineers in this industry do not have the luxury of a decent basic wage. It is not an industry that encourages best practice. It does not reward the pilot who studies and knows their aircraft and their rules. It values the pilots that will shut up, do what they are told and endure wannabe/hasbeen/neverwas chief pilots and operators and all the **** they shovel their way.

Not an industry to be proud of really.

The other thing (2) is that we have been hoodwinked into believing that regional airlines and air charter is somehow very different from other transport and communications infrastructures. It is a complete contradiction that every level of aviation from ab initio training upwards, must make a dollar. This is not the case with rail, with road transport, with telephones, with sea transport.

Aviation is the odd one out. Every person that boards a C210, a Baron or a Metro is paying too much and not getting anywhere near what is their right to expect. And now 15 people have paid with their lives.

I thought it was an excellent program. As a former resident of Arnhemland communities, I thought it made an excellent point.